Excuse For A Gentleman's Abduction
by fictionalcandie
Summary: He was a gentleman, but if he'd only been born Darcy, as he should have, then everything would have turned out differently. Oneshot. Wickhamfic. Part of a series.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the world or characters of _Pride and Prejudice_, much as it pains me...

**Author's Notes:** This was more fun to write than my last P&P fic, because it's less coherent and straightforward, and I like doing that. (I don't have to work so hard...?) I had started it awhile ago, but had not expected to finish it quite so soon. The reader response to _Anatomy of A Gentleman's Seduction_, however, changed my mind and convinced me to work on it before I'd planned. See the power of reviews?

Remember it and review this time:P

**o.o.o.o**

George Wickham was not so bad a man as the Darcy family would portray him to be; he was out for all he could get no matter how it affected others, it was true, but that did not mean he was a _villain_. He gambled recklessly, frequently and expensively, yes, and tried to hide it, yes, but that did not make him a blackguard. He liaised as often as he chose, with women he perhaps should not have, but that did not make him a rake.

Surely, it did not.

He was a _gentleman_.

Perhaps he had not been born such, and perhaps he lacked Darcy's airs and pomposity, but he had been raised as a gentleman, and to that epithet he would cling with his last breath. One did not have to keep from one's cups and keep a tight hold on one's pursestrings and keep ones britches above one's knees to be a gentleman. The essence of a gentleman was not in the breeding, or in the thinking, or in the actions after dark. It was what one did with oneself with the daylight eyes of society upon one. After all, one did not have to be _Darcy_ to be a gentleman.

Surely, one did not.

He was quite absolutely a gentleman, and as such, had met only three women who had left any real or lasting impression on his life. Sadly, the effect of each was rather too large for his liking, and had invariably led to his letting the next of the lot do her damage. They'd been his downfall. He sort of regretted that. But of his many hobbies -- they were not vices, for true gentleman had no vices -- women were his favorite, and he was by far the most susceptible to them. He could never have avoided his ruination, if it came in the form of a women, or many women.

Which, as he'd already admitted, it had.

-

-

Little Georgiana would be innocent until she died, as everyone who truly looked at her knew. He liked her innocence -- her fortune most, it was true, but also her innocence. He himself had never been innocent, lamentably. Life had never allowed it. So naturally, after he'd arranged to meet her at Ramsgate, he'd wanted just a bit of that crisp white soul-deep purity for his own! Perfectly understandable, he'd always thought, and then he'd invariably proceed to wonder why no-one else had ever seen the logical side of his attraction to the malleable Miss Darcy.

(Well, and maybe just a bit he'd wanted to get back at Darcy for that debacle with the unfair disposal of the living that was his Right, too. One couldn't help that, though; Darcy was practically designed for getting revenge upon. It helped especially if one had a strongly founded reason, which was not particularly difficult to come across, when one dealt with Darcy.)

He'd convinced her to elope with him, it had been remarkably easy really, and thereafter just allowed himself to relax into anticipation of a truly comfortable future life, when Darcy appeared. The man understood nothing, and of course gave him no chance to explain _anything_, and he'd been expelled from a situation that by rights the other man had no jurisdiction over.

The instant he'd heard that Darcy was in town, he'd known it would happen, of course. That did not mean he had to think it _right_, or to _enjoy_ it.

He'd left the place angry, dejected, and nursing an almost unhealthy thirst to succeed in taking away some other of Darcy's women, if he were ever to find such a creature as worthy of his benevolent attentiveness as he'd initially thought Georgiana.

-

-

The first time he had met Elizabeth, he had known there was something special about her. He hadn't been sure quite what it was at first, but had definitely seen Darcy look at her, and Darcy did not look at just anyone. A few moments of conversation with her later had provided him with some insight, however, and a few more of simple observation had gifted him with what he flattered himself was true knowledge. Here, finally, was one of Darcy's women that he appropriate with impunity.

Elizabeth, he had discovered, was intelligent and charming and teasing and passionate and quite fine-looking if one had a fondness for dark, unconsciously sensuous eyes and rather luscious lips. She was, in short, a veritable treasure.

Darcy always had known wealth when he saw it.

Just a pity for George that Darcy had an aggravating tendency of _getting_ it, as well.

-

For awhile he'd thought he'd won, it was true, and he'd been damned happy about himself and his obviously far superior abilities. It had been remarkably easy to get her over into his camp, into seeing things the right way -- the way he saw them. She'd been educated and approving, and most assuredly on _his_ side.

Then he'd got a bit too complacent, and she'd disappeared into Kent.

And when she'd returned, she'd practically been singing Darcy's praises. Not verbally, of course, but her eyes had never lied to him before, and now they were hooded and unreadable, shinning of _Darcy Darcy Darcy_ whenever the light hit them the right way.

He knew instantly that he'd lost yet again.

-

-

When he had been introduced to Lydia, he confessed, he had barely noticed her beyond her obvious interest in flirting with both Denny and himself at once. She would, he was presumptuous enough to suppose, flirt with all the eligible (attractive) men in the country, were she given the opportunity.-- Indeed, after the Militia's transferal to and encampment at Brighton for the summer, he had the rare pleasure of watching her give the task a credible go. To be sure, she had not the entire populous of England's handsome bachelors, but she had what amounted, in her mind certainly, to a fair chunk of them, and it was open season on them all. She was madly in love with them all the moment they favored her with a smile, and horribly disappointed if their attention strayed the slightest bit.

Her tendency to wild, temporary affection had made it easy for him to seduce her. He did not think they'd been there a full week before he'd convinced her to uncross her legs for him. He probably would not have tried so hard as he did, however, if it had not been for Elizabeth's absence and change of allegiance. That she was not there was pardonable, of course, but that she so clearly and bluntly preferred Darcy was nigh on intolerable. And to think, he'd fancied her a woman of sense!-- it was only by convincing himself that a woman who could be blinded by the, considerably inferior, charms of the Master of Pemberley was not worth regretting, that he managed to pursue Lydia.

The girl herself was so liberated by the removal from her family that she was almost unrecognizable in her well-breed shamelessness. She became almost as appealing as Elizabeth had been; he might almost have lured her into bed, without the temptation of vengeance upon Elizabeth for being yet _another_ woman who favored Darcy above himself.

Once he'd bedded Lydia -- though he was obviously not the first to have done so -- she unfortunately became unnaturally attached to him. He could do no wrong, and no matter how strenuously he attempted to shake her faith, he could not do it. Her unreasonable affection grew wearisome to his ears, especially compared with Georgiana's more sedated adoration of old or Elizabeth's sly and smiling favoritism, and to console himself he gambled more heavily than ever.

-

His debts had eventually forced him to flee the Militia. This was not his fault, of course, for if only his fellow officers had picked up the tab a time or two more often, he would not have owed nearly so much; truly, generosity was dead. Regardless of the circumstance's blame (though, he strongly stressed the fact that none of it was his own), he left in haste and in secret. And he took with him an almost unwanted baggage, the idea of which had not been his own: Lydia. She had discovered that he was departing and had immediately -- and nonsensically -- determined that he meant her to go with him, for surely they were eloping to Scotland.

(Surely, they were _not_.)

He'd brought her with him to London, however, because he was not really a bad man, and would have hated to disappoint her. Besides, if he had not, she would definitely have raised a great hue and cry and made his escape impossible.

-

For a short time after his silly little act of unaccountable, and excessively gallant, magnanimity, things had been acceptably enjoyable. Lydia's nagging was annoying, but something he could tune out, and aside from that he quite enjoyed having such an attractive young woman as his constant companion.

Then Darcy had appeared.

Despite his fervent arguments and frequent protestations, George knew instantly that he was doomed.

-

Though he married her that Monday morning without further objection, some corner of his clever, wicked mind could not quite resign itself to the fate into which it was entering. To gracefully give up the dreams and aspirations of one's whole life was a trick he had never managed the catching of; he had seen his father do it when he realized that the late Mrs Wickham would never do anything but impoverish him, and he had seen Darcy do it the day his father had died. But for himself, he had never caught on to the knack of it, and before now had never particularly had reason to wish otherwise. Even neck-deep debt was not so bad as the parson's mousetrap.

It wasn't that he disliked the woman he was making his wife; really, he was quite as fond of her as a sensible person could be of an ignorant, silly chit such as she was. She was rather nice to look at, especially when he was intoxicated (which was frequently), and able enough in bed with a little couching. She had no money of her own but as they had been provided for nicely by Darcy, something which he liked just fine, he had no real reason to complain on that score. It was just that, as he would admit to himself if he had to and sometimes when he did not, Lydia Wickham with all her flirtatious charms and her equal share in five thousand pounds on her father's death and her hundred pounds annually, just was not Georgiana Wickham, with blond gentleness and her thirty thousand pounds and her welcome at Pemberley. And worse, she was not Elizabeth Wickham, with her wit and her dazzling smile and her damn fine eyes and her warm little laugh of vicious mirth that curled down his spine like fine liquor.

He would, he supposed, always lament that Georgiana had not less sense, or Lizzy greater fortune. And more, that he had not been born in Darcy's place.

Then he would have had no _need_ to resort to kidnapping.


End file.
